Wembley this morning was a far cry from Wembley yesterday morning. She was on full speed for some reason - bounding back and forth across beds, eating socks... Nuts! It's been so fun to have her around on this trip. She definitely keeps things interesting!
And free hotel breakfast for the win! We've been surviving off of bananas and hard boiled eggs for breakfast -- to save time and money. So this morning we really splurged with some instant oatmeal, raisin brain, and a english muffin with jam!
Wembley has been shedding like crazy and smelling not the best on this road trip. The day at the beach on the Oregon coast certainly didn't help. And since I'm the one that has to have her in my lap half of the day, I gave her a bath this morning. I just put her in the shower with me and used a little plastic cup and hotel shampoo to clean her up. You would have thought it was the end of the world. She clawed at me and shook the whole time. The dog who will run in to the ocean waves or in to the rushing waters coming off a mountain is apparently terrified of a hotel bathtub faucet. (And the hair dryer. Also not a fan of the hair dryer.)
Our plans changed a little last night/this morning. Since Ryan decided to fly in to Portland tonight, and we were only a couple of hours away from there, we had the whole day to burn. (The original plan was to drive all the way to Tahoe today...which is definitely not happening now.)
So, plan B: hit up Mt. Rainier National Park, then check out a little bit of Portland this evening. Back on the road we went, for the hour drive east to Mt. Rainier. Uneventful, but beautiful drive. (With a sleeping dog on my lap, of course.)
This has to be on the of the best National Park entrance signs I've seen! I just love it!
The lady at the entrance fee gate was not very nice, telling us, "Well, there is 15 feet of snow up there right now, so NO, you will not see any wildflowers," rolling her eyes. Ugh. And then told us we couldn't take Wembley anywhere.
The drive through the park and up to the base of Mt. Rainier was uuhhhhhh-mazing! I had my face pressed to the window the whole time just in awe of all the old ancient trees, the trails, the streams of water...and the giant Mt. Rainier!
Oh, and we didn't listen to the park lady and definitely took Wembley with us out on the snow to get a better view of the mountain.
There were a lot of other people out there since the weather was perfect. We weren't really dressed for the snow, but it wasn't cold, so we hung out there for awhile and let Wembley bark at everyone, like she does so well.
The mountains opposite Mt. Rainier were equally impressive to look at. (I mean, I like to look at all mountains though, so maybe my opinion shouldn't count.)
So.Much.Snow up there! Look how high it was piled up -- there and along the road on the drive back!
Shannon promised me we could stop as many times as I wanted on the way back down. (Because she wouldn't stop at all on the way up!) So we stopped. A lot.
Not far outside of the park gates, we saw a little road side shop. Looked like a pawn shop or something with all the stuff they had sitting around, but we decided to give it a look. And good thing we did! Shannon found a cute little hand carved bear for her mom for Mothers Day!
We spotted a few more small tulip fields on the drive toward Portland, but nothing like the ones we saw in Tulip Town in northern Washington. We also made a little detour to try and find some lavender fields. Unfortunately, we were too early in the year for that. They weren't blooming yet.
We made it back to Portland around rush hour - again - and got stuck in traffic - again. Decided on dinner at Whole Foods, and then walked around the downtown area and checked out Powell's books - apparently the largest used book store in the US?
Shannon agreed, so we walked back to the car and drove to the other VooDoo donut store - just like 10 minutes away. And wouldn't you know it - no line at all! Jackpot!
The donut selection was much larger and much crazier than I ever would have dreamed up. I mean, how can you even come up with all of these donuts! They can't all be good!
We settled on three, and took the box to go to eat with Ryan tomorrow morning. (The bacon one is for him!)
Sunset was beautiful that night as we drove to our hotel, just a few miles from the airport.
We got checked in and I snuck the dog up the back stairs again. Getting pretty good at that! Wembley was so excited to NOT be in the car. All she wanted to do was play, and she was having NO part of me not paying attention to her!
Shannon and I had an hour or so to kill before Ryan's flight came in, so we laid in bed and went through all of her wedding pictures. She hadn't even gone through them yet. So many fun memories from the awesome day! We (the bridesmaids) really pulled the mis-matched dress look off quite well if you ask me!
Ryan landed on time, Shannon went to get him, and then we all crashed for the night. Off to Crater Lake tomorrow!
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